“BlackBerry” director Matt Johnson is enjoying the controversy simmering around his latest film.
Earlier this week, RIM’s former chief financial officer Dennis Kavelman published an opinion piece in the National Post calling the film an “obvious, lazy portrayal of tech bro culture” that “seems to go out of its way to diminish and tarnish the legacy of the founders and employees of one of Canada’s great technology stories.”
"BlackBerry" is very loosely based on “Losing the Signal,” a 2015 book by reporters Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff. The film effectively takes their facts and feeds them through a paper shredder before reassembling the jagged remnants of familiarity. Johnson rounds out the trio of leads as RIM co-founder Doug Fregin, a composite of various RIM employees and elements of fiction.Both Howerton and Baruchel are receiving praise from audiences and befuddlement from those who knew the real co-CEOs and say they missed the mark by a mile.
Some of the film's pre-release attention surrounded Howerton's portrayal of Balsillie as a firebrand leader with equally ambitious and volatile tendencies. He took the role with the mindset of playing “a man who always thought he was the smartest guy in every room.” Johnson, who candidly acknowledges the film would've probably benefited more from an agitated Balsillie in the press, takes the businessman's diplomatic stance as a sign he's secretly stung over how he appears in the movie.